Chapter 61: The First Bucket of Gold

  (I was too busy watching the ball game and forgot to update, I'm really sorry, the second update is coming, heh...)

  In 1994, the city of Hekou had only a handful of luxurious restaurants. The development of this third-tier city was at least twenty years behind that of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Liu Yifei took Wang Tian and Zheng Zhi to a decent restaurant and booked a private room.

  After ordering food, the waiter retreated and left, leaving only three people in the room.

  Without waiting for the two to say anything, Liu Yifei took out two pages of letter paper from his pocket and said: "This is half of the story I rushed out this afternoon. Considering it's your game, I added some other settings. Take a look." He handed the two pages to Zheng Zhiqian.

  Wang Tian, however, took a step forward and grabbed it first. Zheng Zhi Chen looked at Liu Yi Fei in surprise, and also followed Wang Tian's serious gaze.

  Liu Yifei's heart was even more determined, the two of them looking at their things with such urgency, which further showed how much they valued these things, and he definitely wouldn't leave empty-handed this time. He slowly sipped his tea, watching the reactions of the two people.

  After a full twenty minutes, the two of them finally finished reading it and looked at each other, their eyes revealing a look of astonishment. Zheng Zhicheng cleared his throat and said, "Liu brother, this thing you wrote is not bad."

  "Hmm...I don't know if it's good or not, just see if you can use it."

  Liu Yifei's attitude was very good at this time, but Zheng Zhi had already dared not to underestimate Liu Yifei, and said cautiously: "Brother Liu, I don't know if you can let us see the second half again?"

  "It can be, but I'll just let you see it like this?" Liu Yifei's mouth corners slightly curled up.

  Wang Tian took out a cigarette, lit it up and said: "Of course we won't just watch for free. I admit that many of your ideas have been very helpful to our game. How about this? We'll pay you a certain amount of money, buy this little story from you. What do you think?" Wang Tian intentionally emphasized the word "little".

  "Oh, how much money can you give me then?" Liu Yifei smiled and looked at Wang Tian.

  Wang Tian leaned back and said, "In our Taiwan, the remuneration for new writers is generally around 50 yuan per thousand words. Of course, this is converted to your renminbi. Let's be generous and give you 100 yuan per thousand words. If it's less than a thousand words, we'll count it as a thousand words. What do you think?"

  "Oh, a thousand words for a hundred yuan, it's not a small amount if I were to write an article, but... you're being too insincere, this is my creative idea, the value of creativity and articles are not equal, it's obvious that you're taking advantage of me being a high school student. In that case, I don't think there's anything more to discuss with you, goodbye." Liu Yifei's face turned cold, and he turned to leave.

  Zheng Zhi Chen hurriedly said, "Don't go, Wang Tian was just joking with you. We are indeed very sincere in negotiating with you, but this matter is not simple. I hope Brother Liu will still give us the opportunity to negotiate."

  Wang Tian also smiled awkwardly and said: "Liu younger brother, how come you don't have any sense of humor? You can't even tell when I'm joking."

  The two of them sang and harmonized, pulling the conversation back on track. However, Liu Yifei saw a hint of helplessness in their gazes. Two high-ranking company officials were being toyed with by a mere high school student, which was uncomfortable for anyone to admit. He smiled and said, "I'm not a humorous person, so if you two have anything to say, please just say it clearly. Let's avoid any misunderstandings, that wouldn't be good."

  Wang Tiangui was even more embarrassed, but after all, he wasn't an ordinary person. He raised his wine cup and said, "Come on, let's have a drink, everything is in the wine."

  Liu Yifei accompanied him in drinking a cup of beer, smiled and didn't say anything.

  Zheng Zhi Chen also took a sip, and after putting down his cup, he said: "Liu brother, I'll be honest with you too. Our company is indeed very interested in your story and setting. If we were just starting to develop this game, we would have definitely bought it from you at a high price. However, our game has already entered its final stages, and most of it has taken shape. Your work can only serve as a supplement to our game now, and its value is fundamentally incomparable to what it was before. I hope you can still understand."

  Liu Yifei did not refute Zheng Zhi Chen's words, knowing that he was stating facts. He didn't feel disappointed either, as this had been within his expectations all along. At this moment, he smiled slightly and said, "Yes, Director Zheng, I understand what you're saying."

  Zheng Zhi Chen let out a subtle sigh of relief and said, "That's good. In my opinion, we want to take a look at Liu brother's entire plan. Then, we'll take Liu brother's plan back and carefully discuss it. If it's feasible, we'll definitely give Liu brother a reasonable price. If not, we also hope to continue cooperating with Liu brother in the future. If there are any good game ideas, you can still submit them to us."

  Liu Yifei thought for a moment and said, "Then how do I know whether you've adopted my idea or not? This doesn't seem like an independent work. As soon as you release it, I'll know if it's mine or not. Now that you've also done something similar, whether or not to adopt my idea is entirely up to you. It seems like I'm being a bit too passive."

  Zheng Zhi-chen smiled slightly and said, "Hmm, we can understand your concerns, especially since you're on the mainland and we're in Taiwan, it's really inconvenient to communicate. So what we're thinking is, how about we give you a portion of the money right now and completely buy out your idea? Whether we end up using it or not, that's our company's problem, nothing to do with you. What do you think? Of course... it definitely won't be like the price Wang Tian joked about earlier." He had already taken on an equal negotiating stance with Liu Yi-fei.

  "This is worth considering, but what price can you offer?"

  "So let's take a look at the second half of your setup. To be honest, there are too many similarities between your setup and our overall plan, it's really confusing us."

  Liu Yifei smiled slightly and said, "Things in the world are originally strange, I didn't expect my idea to coincide with your company's game. How about this, you show me the second half of your game story, and I'll see if I need to make any changes to my thoughts."

  Zheng Zhi Chen immediately shook his head and said, "Liu brother, this is something we can't do. For our company, any information about the game is top secret. If it's leaked ahead of time, it will affect the life and death of our company. I hope you can understand."

  Liu Yifei was taken aback, but nodded immediately and said: "Okay, then I won't look. Now I want to see the price you gave me, is it worth me giving all my things to you?"